Internal Memo: Andrew Cuomo at the Debate

What am I doing up here with all these morons? It’s finally my moment to assume my birthright as governor of New York and I don’t even have a worthy opponent.

Carl Paladino, you are supposedly a major party candidate for the office of governor, you rode into the nomination on the wave of the national juggernaut Tea Party movement, and tonight you show up at Hofstra, spend ninety minutes looking, with those sad bedraggled eyes, like you’re about to fall asleep and then you can’t even hold it long enough to shake my hand after the bell rings? Here we are face to face, and where is the homophobia, where is the bestiality, where are the threats to the lives of the members of the press? You’ve disappointed me, Carl. Have another cold winter in Buffalo.

Charles Barron, you two-faced bastard! Stop talking about progressive taxation. Nobody has won a damn thing in this country talking that way since the 1940s. Stop claiming that hydrofracking — I’m sorry, hydraulic fracturing — is going to cause an earthquake in Syracuse. Who cares what happens up there anyway? And if you ever refer to me as the bureaucratic equivalent of an arsonist again, Brownsville will never see another dime of state money. Quit thinking you’re still a Black Panther, be a good Democrat and fall in line.

Warren Redlich, I admire the intellectual purity of your libertarianism and that you are, as you point out, neither a governor’s offspring, a known john nor a convict. What are you even doing in this race? Should the day ever come when pure libertarianism becomes politically viable and voters in favor of eviscerating government entitlements and slashing taxes for all become the same who support gay marriage and ending the war on drugs, I wish you luck.

Howie Hawkins, whereas Charlie Barron’s left-wing rhetoric comes suffused with the sulfurous fumes of his demagogic ego, you are possessed of an authenticity and a political innocence befitting a man who spent the last decade unloading UPS trucks. As a teamster and a champion of cooperative enterprises, you are exactly the sort of earnest, dovish believer in social justice I’ll need to hoodwink on a national scale should I ever follow through on my ambitions to run for the White House.

Jimmy McMillan, your insistence that the rent is too damn high strikes at the very bedrock of our political system. Your declaration that we should bulldoze all of the mountains of upstate New York in order for the state to obtain complete independence bespeaks of an ability to combine your populism with a transformative outlook worthy of a Stalin or a Mao. Your gloves, your sideburns-and-mustache medley, your expertise in karate, your invitation to the rest of us to have coffee when you get to Albany — all these spell the makings of a lucrative career in reality television. After you make your first million, invest in some real estate. Acquaint yourself with the state’s property taxes under my administration. Then ask yourself, is the rent high enough?

Kristin Davis, you are mesmerizing. I can’t take my eyes off of you. Of all the morons up here with me tonight, you have the most truly radical vision. The government is, at its core, a provider of services, just like your escort service. In your New York, after a hard day of campaigning like this one, I could sit back, puff on a joint, roll a few dice and — No, I’m not going to be that kind of governor. Thank you to Hofstra, Channel 12 and Newsday. Go Yankees!